Need a shoulder to cry on

funkycamper

To FunkyCamper,

I'm sorry you're having some weight gain. Here's a shoulder for you and some information as well.

Thanks. I can use all the shoulders I can get.

A few things. It is recommended that you rerun your TDEE after every 5 pound swing. I reran your numbers, but I'm not clear on your current. activity level. If you're at moderate activity, your TDEE-15 is 1913. At light activity, that number drops to 1697. I think others have already pointed out that you don't eat exercise calories unless your net calories (food-exercise) are below your BMR (1452). I'm not sure if you are doing that or not.

I just re-ran my numbers at Scooby's and my TDEE-15 at moderate activity is 2009. I do realize that, with this plan, I don't eat back exercise calories.

Another thing you mentioned is that you've been using carbs to increase your calorie intake. But here, it is recommended that you concentrate on increasing protein and try to reach daily macro goals of 40/30/30 (carbs/protein/fat). My father is diabetic, so I know about the link between carbs and blood sugar. I guess that's another reason to work on increasing protein.

I haven't consciously tried to focus on carbs. However, even though I liberally use fats eating things like nut butters, real butter, mayonnaise, and olive oil, I still found it hard to get my calories consistently up high enough just eating more fats and protein. I'm not a big meat fan so eating enough protein is always a struggle which is one reason why I use protein powders, either as a shake or mixing vanilla-flavored protein powder into my yogurt. Even with that, found it virtually imposible to meet calorie goals without also eating more carbs. Even with that, my carb intake was never 40%. Most days closer to 30% but, even that is too high of a percentage for my body to handle well. I do best when I don't go over 100 grams/day on days with lots of exercise. On lighter exercise days, I do best keeping my carbs closer to about 60-70 grams.

I also read that you used to drink protein shakes before workouts. The thing is that protein helps build your muscles and speeds up repair of your muscles, so that's why most people drink it after workouts. I drink 2 a day - once in the morning and once after I workout. If I workout in the morning, I wait until after my workout to drink it and then add one later in the day.

The reason why I drank the shakes before is that I really can't do intense HIIT or circuit-training, my preferred exercises, with the feeling of any kind of food on my stomach. Even a light meal of about 400 calories needs to be eaten at least three, preferably closer to four, hours prior to my workout. But I was finding that I was often hitting a wall during my workout. Drinking a protein shake prior to workout would give me good fuel for the workout but not the feeling of fullness on my stomach that bothers me during workouts and, quite often, even gives me severe indigestion.

The last thing with this method is consistency. You want your body to understand that you will fuel it everyday. I know some people do zigzagging, but I would recommend that you still try to keep your net calories over your BMR. So, you could zigzag between your cut (TDEE-15 or 20%) and your maintenance level (TDEE), but I wouldn't go down much further than that.

I'm not arguing your point. It makes logical sense in the context of wanting to be able to eat more to weigh less and assure your body that you're always going to fuel it properly. However, this also defeats the purpose of the zigzag, imho, as this really doesn't let you bank enough calories to amount to any kind of splurge. Not saying this is a good thing or bad thing, just an observation.

I know this can be frustrating. I'm 45 and hormonally, my body is a mess. But I know that I yo-yo dieted for years, so it's not surprising that my body doesn't believe this 3 month "experiment" is really going to last for the rest of my life.

I don't have any history of yo-yo dieting and I have never eaten very low calorie except for the August through about mid-November time-frame of last year when I first started at MFP when I was eating roughly 1200 calories/day without eating back my exercise calories. Not sure if that makes a difference but I just thought I'd point that out.

I don't know what else to say. I hope you have enough information to decide how you will finish your weight loss journey.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the advice and support. Gives me something more to chew on.